Limited memory resources pose a challenge with some portable electronic devices. Applications installed on a portable electronic device are stored in the device's memory, as are user data items that are used by the applications and system data used by the applications and the operating system of the device. For example, a device having several different applications will store in its memory contact information, e-mail messages, tasks, calendar entries, instant messages, audio files, image files and other forms of user data items.
In order not to waste the limited memory resources, data may be arranged and stored in an efficient manner, and techniques such as compression may be used. A user may also be able to add additional memory to the device, or to replace the existing memory of the device with memory having greater storage capacity. There are also portable memory units that can provide additional storage for the device. For example, if the portable electronic device has a universal serial bus (USB) port and supports the ability to transfer data to an external storage unit, a USB flash drive may be connected to the portable electronic device and the user may transfer data from the device to the drive. In another example, if the portable electronic device is a Bluetooth® (BT) device and supports the ability to transfer data to an external storage unit, then the user may select certain data and transfer the selected data from the device to a dedicated BT hard disk drive.
At some point in time the memory of a portable electronic device may have insufficient capacity to store data in addition to whatever is currently stored therein, or the unused storage capacity of the memory may have fallen below a predetermined threshold. The user of the device may then be prompted to erase some user data items in order to increase the unused storage capacity of the memory. The device may have a memory manager that automatically erases some of the user data items when activated.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity.